


Yielding

by afinch



Category: Inception (2010)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/pseuds/afinch
Summary: She's a mystery that he must solve; she's seeking penance, the only way she knows how.





	Yielding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Major](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Major/gifts).



She was, in all things, a mystery to him. The newest employee at his company, and she was sharp, and would rise in the ranks, or so her superiors said. But never had he more than a fleeting conversation with her. She always ran off, or slipped away after he'd said hello, that he'd barely gotten to hear her say her name.

Thus he was in love with her, in the way only men who are obsessed with something that will not yield to them are. He had been getting better with his obsessions and desires, but something about her drew him to her. She was an enigma, and he rather liked enigmas. 

"Ariadne," he called to her as she entered the building. She stopped, saw it was him, and took a deep breath to steel herself. He knew this, he had seen this many times. Many were still afraid of him. Many still nervous he'd become his father, even after all the actions to the contrary. No, he was his own person now, and the woman had nothing to be frightened of. 

"Petrov has called in sick, and I'm told you know the presentation better than anyone. I'll need to prep with you, before I present it."

She looked a sheet at this, and he couldn't help but laugh, "Now, I don't bite, come along, shall we? I've already cleared it with Casey."

She stammered, but finally managed a, "Yes, sir," and turned to follow him. Her fingers were turning white as she gripped her bag, and she kept her head down. 

"You're quite elusive," he said to her as they made their way into the elevator. "Most new hires are eager to meet me, to prove themselves, to assure me they can fit into my new vision for the company. You, on the other hand, are either thought of as basic, or as a spy."

Her breath hitched at this, but she said nothing, keeping her eyes firmly on the floor as the elevator slowly moved up to his office.

"Don't worry," he said. "I know it's not true, on either accounts, I made sure to vet you thoroughly before you were hired. Downstairs thinks you're all brilliant, Casey would like five of you, and yet … well, hopefully today we'll get through some of it, yes?"

He glanced at her, hoping he'd been at least a little reassuring, but she still looked down, nodding her head at his suggestion. Did she figure that he'd orchestrated the meeting with her? No matter, he had, and that was all there was to it. "You get set up in the conference room, and I'll get us both coffee. How do you take yours?"

But the elevator doors had opened and she had shot down the hallway towards the conference room so quickly he was stunned. When he entered the conference room a few minutes later with his coffee and a cup for her with a two packets of sugar and two creamers, the company contents of her bag were on the table, along with her badge, but she was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

When he met up with her again, several years had passed, and she was a rising star at one of his competitors. The governor was hosting some charity drive and naturally, he was one of the largest donors and had secured a table for himself and several company workers. By fortune or fate (or both) she was gleaming at the table next to him, laughing with her colleagues and looking nothing at all like the mouse who had fled from him.

Fortune favored the bold, so he approached the table, offering his polite greetings to a fellow CEO in the trade, and in turn to the rest of the group. When she was introduced, he couldn't help himself.

"Oh, yes, Ariadne, you worked for me for a bit, didn't you? I'd hate to think I was the one who ran you off?"

It was casual, and light, and several of the others at the table tittered pleasantly. But she would not look at him, only staring at her plate as she answered, "No, it wasn't you."

The silence that enveloped the table was broken by another guest changing the subject entirely. Never, for as long as he was at the table, did she move her eyes from her plate. When he returned to his own table, he heard her excuse herself, and he knew he would chase her, he knew before brain had caught up to his feet, and soon he was out of the building, watching her red coat whip around a corner.

He caught up to her quickly and grabbed her arm to stop her, "Ariadne, what is it that I have done to you?" he asked, his voice desperate. "Have I harmed you in some way? Please let me make amends if so. I hate to see you suffering like this."

Her voice was cold, and sharp, "Have you changed that much, I wonder? Or is this …" she trailed off and fidgeted with something in her pocket. 

His eyes flickered to it, then back to her. "I am not my father," he said, gently. He hoped it wasn't a gun in her pocket. "Please let me make it right."

He wanted her to look him in the eye, wanted her to know that whatever he had done, he was sorry for it and would make amends. 

"I suppose you're not going to go away until I do. God, Arthur said-" she stopped herself and shook her head, looking up to the sky. She was battling tears. "Fine," she said, after a moment, but she still did not look at him. Coffee. At Berry's Cafe. On 25th. Tomorrow. 8am."

He wanted to know, immediately, who Arthur was, but he would let that pass, for now. Arthur may have been an associate of his father's - there had been many - and if this had something to do with him, she was right in that he wouldn't rest until he had righted all of his father's wrongs. He was not his father, and he would prove it at any cost to anyone. Including her.

* * *

Perhaps if she were not so beautiful, he would not have gone, but he did, to the cafe, at the appropriate time. This time, he had been smart enough to bring precautions. A body guard, and a scout, sipping coffee and pretending to read Lolita just a few tables down. 

She was already there, of course she was, and she looked nervous. He supposed she hadn't come alone either, and he scanned the room. There, towards the back. A crisp-looking man, sipping coffee and pretending to read Douglas Adams.

He motioned his bodyguard away and sat across from her. She was playing with the cuff of her blouse, her face already flushed. She looked even more beautiful in her nervousness than she did when she was confident and self-aware. But she was here now, willing to speak to him. She did not look up as he sat. Presently, he reached his hand and covered hers, and that did the trick; her eyes, bright and startled, locked with his, and in seconds, he knew she was the one.

"You …" he said softly. 

She held his gaze, her body trembling, but her eyes settling into steel determination. She said nothing to this, but stared back at him, her jaw clenching with effort. 

"You look like a memory I cannot place," he said after a moment. He'd had dream training, he knew how to shelter his mind from attacks, and by luck nobody had tried. He felt he would have known had someone intruded, but he also knew he would remember her, especially those eyes. He would remember those eyes anywhere. 

"I'm being rude," he said again, and broke the gaze. She gave a short gasp of relief and pulled her hands closer to her. "Why do I scare you?" he asked, looking at her carefully for some sort of clue. "I don't want to scare you."

"What do you want?" the question came quick and in one breath and she sucked in another so quickly after it was as though she instantly regretted it. 

He considered this for a moment. "What do you want?" he countered with. "I want what you want."

"I want you to go away."

He frowned, "I don't want what you want."

"So you're a liar."

"I am puzzled and entranced," he replied. She looked up briefly, and the look on her face wasn't anger or fear, but more wonderment. 

"I'm …" she started and trailed off. His response had thrown her for a loop. Her shoulders relaxed just a little, and her breaths were longer now. "I'm sorry. You're not at all what I-"

He smiled, "Does my father have something to do with this?"

She nodded, and he could see she was biting her lip at this. He didn't know what that meant. She was acting so strangely, so still very much a mystery. One he knew he needed to solve. Cliche, yes, but cliches are only cliches because they're true, in some regards. And right now, he was a full cliche, attracted to a woman because of the mystery she contained. 

He reached a hand across the table and once more covered hers. "Let me make it up to you," he whispered.

She looked up at him, her eyes now full of suspense and resignation, a dichotomy he couldn't begin to fathom. She turned her palm, let his hand sit in hers, and she closed her fingers around hers. "I'd like that," she said.

* * *

What she wanted, in the end, was as he wanted, to join themselves together, her laying supine on the bed as he drove himself into her, over and over again.

"Harder," she'd whisper to him, wrapping her legs around him and pulling him tighter to her. "You can't hurt me." The way she said it, it seemed as though it meant more than just sex, but he took it at her face value, and treated her as the conquest she desired to be. When she brought handcuffs, he treated her as the captive she wanted to be. Her favorite was the blindfold, tightly secured to her face as he clicked the cuffs in place and drove into her. At climax, he would rip it off, her eyes wild and desperate and completely yielding as he pressed into her. 

"Harder," she would whisper, as she lay facedown on the bed, her arms outstretched and locked to the frame. The lube would be there, and the belt. His dick sprang at the sight, and he would oblige her, only to grab her hair and turn her face so he could look into her eyes whenever he climaxed. That was his only rule. Hers was "Harder" and they fell into a steady rhythm, he would seek out more ways to bind her, and she would always yield and always assert that it was never enough. 

She was still a dichotomy, still a mystery he couldn't solve. The pieces came though, slowly. She liked to be as immobile as possible when he entered her, and she liked for him to lash her before doing so; she needed the pain before the pleasure, and reacted to it as much as the pleasure, if not more. The unioning of their bodies was for his pleasure, but she never made him feel as though he were less for not giving her her own pleasure. The first time he'd tried to go down on him, she'd broken down sobbing, begging him to stop. But if he took his belt and hit her there five times before thrusting into her, she was wild and unsatiated and always demanding, "harder".

But he had what he wanted, a beautiful woman to claim over and over again, and he could be okay with her mysteries, so long as she still made him happy. His dreams paled in comparison to the reality she presented. Their lives were two orbits, around each other. She was his moon and his stars and he was her driving sun. 

"Harder," she whispered again, and he pushed deep into her, holding her face with both hands as he spilled into her. When he was done, he reached for her chained hand and slipped a ring on the fourth finger. 

"Marry me," he whispered. "Marry me and we can do this forever."

She squirmed slightly under him, her tiny body vibrating with the shock of the question. 

"Only if you promise you'll never stop," she said, holding her eyes on him, desperate and pleading. "Please."

He cupped her face, gently and kissed her as much on the lips. "You're my little mystery, and this the only way I can unravel you," he said. "I would never stop."

She nodded, "Then yes. I would like that." 

His smile turned into a low, deep laugh, a possessive laugh; their eyes locked once more and it was she who blinked first, yielding.


End file.
